Committing to Writing

Commit to 1000 words a day#

1000 words a day is a significant commitment; this can mean anywhere from 2 to 5 hours of writing, depending on your process and purpose. Remember that it doesn’t have to be good. It just has to be useful to your future self. You can get there with:

• 500 words of notes on everything you read and learn and watch and listen to
• 250 words journaling your state of mind and your goals (journaling is a great way to time travel)
• 250 words of actual writing meant for others to read: documentation, blog posts, etc.

That doesn’t look so bad, does it? Of course, tweak it however you like. The way you count words is really up to you. When Nathan Barry committed to 1000 words a day, significant acts of creation, like recording a YouTube video or podcast, counted towards his quota. For me, tweets and code do not count. Brain dumping a list of ideas, like I did before I wrote this essay, counts. Writing summaries of articles and private journal entries count. You might hold yourself to different standards. Your life, your rules.

If 1000 a day pace is too much given your existing commitments, take it slower for longer. 800 words a day for five years. 666 words a day for six years. 400 for ten. Adjust to taste! It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

What happens when you commit?#

When you commit to writing a million words, a few things happen.

More selective about what you consume#

You will be more selective about what you consume. Writing notes and summarizing takes time. If you consume content with the intention of writing down what you learn, you will have less time and, therefore, have to be pickier. When you switch from consume-to-consume to consume-to-create, you naturally spend less time being a passive consumer and more of an active remixer and creator.

Get more out of what you write#

You will want to get more out of what you write. You will want to use your writing to help you work through or learn things that will help you in your day job. Quoting Addy Osmani: “Write about what you learn. It pushes you to understand topics better. Sometimes the gaps in your knowledge only become clear when you try explaining things to others. It’s OK if no one reads what you write. You get a lot out of just doing it for you.” Over time, you may want to try writing long, concentrated repos of information that build over time instead of a disconnected series of one-offs.

Share your writing#

You will want to share it. Since you spent the time to write it, you want to increase the return on investment by making sure it reaches the widest appropriate audience. Most developer writing dies in chat and private email. You should aim to compound your impact by increasing reach and longevity. (To be clear: you shouldn’t publish everything you write!)

Quote yourself#

You will quote yourself. Since you have so much writing capacity, over time, you will have written down your position and a definitive list of resources on any particular topic. Your writing becomes your second brain. (Others will quote you too!)

Won’t be afraid to write#

You won’t be afraid to write. When you are called upon to write for something at work that really matters, others might flinch, but you will have been practicing at high volume for much longer at a much higher standard than anyone else.

Invest in writing better#

You will want to invest in writing better. Since you’re committed, you might as well get good. One way is to have a writing system, separating pre-writing from writing (see: Mise en Place Writing chapter), or even getting professional coaching or training. The investment makes sense because you’ve committed to writing for the very long run.

Get better at writing#

You will get better at writing just from having tried out every form of writing about every topic under every life scenario. Other people will look at your work and wonder how you got there. You’ll tell them, like I’m telling you now, but they won’t believe you. There must be a secret. There isn’t.

All this, from a simple commitment of writing a million words, on the most interesting things to you that are also interesting to others. It’s simple, not easy. You may encounter many personal obstacles to completing this, but if you can overcome them, I don’t see how you cannot succeed.

Writing is your baby#

I am not a parent, but I liken your first day writing to what I’ve heard about the day you come home with your first child. You’re afraid; you don’t know if you’re the person to do this; you don’t know what you don’t know. But you’ve just signed up to raise this child for the next ~two decades. For the next ten million minutes of your life, you will be a parent. So, you read up, try things out, learn from your mistakes, and you “parent” every day. Every year millions of people commit and end up more or less figuring out how to be great parents their kids love.

It’s the same with your writing, your brand, your career. It’s your baby. You’ll figure out how to parent it once you realize it’s yours and you have no choice but to do it every day.

Find a community#

It can help to find a community of people going through the same thing as you are. A bunch of writing commitment platforms exist, like 750 Words, Diary Email, WriteNext, Commit, Reddit’s No Zero Days, and Writing Prompts, or this course’s own community. You can even write in a Git repo and use GitHub’s streak tracker as a commitment device. Whatever floats your boat!

This chapter isn’t writing advice. This is advice to write. I have writing advice, but you can only get there once you write like you breathe.

"I write because I’m scared of writing, but I’m more scared of not writing.”

– Gloria E. Anzaldúa